


Hangin' 'Round the Mistletoe

by enigma731



Series: The 12 Days of Chris Muss [8]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Courting Rituals, Drax tries to give advice, F/M, Gen, Mistletoe, it goes the way it usually does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigma731/pseuds/enigma731
Summary: “The White Berry,” says Drax, “is native to my homeworld. My people use it when they wish to conceive, to enhance fertility. Typically it grows around the winter solstice, but I have found some here!"“Okay…” Peter has a feeling that he’s missing something here. Like, probably a pretty big something. Probably something that he’s going to regret. “Is there...something about your love life that you wanna tell me?”“No!” Drax says immediately. “No, it is foryou. And Gamora. It is only natural, now that you have consummated your relationship.”





	Hangin' 'Round the Mistletoe

“Quill!”

Drax’s voice is audible from clear on the other end of the open-air market, over the sound of the fuel-dealer Peter’s currently haggling with. To be fair, the place isn’t that large, but it is big enough and populated enough to make him absolutely sure that the shouting must seem obnoxious to all of the other patrons. He holds up a hand in the hopes that it will be clear that he’s heard and will be there in a minute.

“Two hundred units,” says the dealer, a short, squat man wearing a hat so large and floppy that Peter can’t quite tell what race he is, not that it matters. Wherever he's from, he’s charging a pretty penny.

“One hundred,” Peter counters.

“Quill!” comes Drax’s voice again, because apparently he hasn’t gotten -- or has chosen not to get -- the meaning of the gesture.

Peter waves at him, this time intending it to be read as _shut up, dammit!_

“One seventy-five,” says the dealer. “Final offer.”

“Come on, man,” Peter cajoles. “I wanna help you out but, like, we’re gonna use the fuel to protect you and the rest of the galaxy. Shouldn’t that earn us a little bit of a discount?”

“ _Quiiiiiiillllll!_ ” Drax roars.

“One seventy-five,” the dealer repeats, then cocks his head in the direction of the noise. “And I don’t have your friend here arrested for unruly conduct.”

Peter sighs, not prepared for this to turn into more of a fight than it needs to. “Fine, fine.” He whips out his holopad to transfer the units. “Fill her up and I’ll go deal with--” He nods irritably in Drax’s direction. “That.”

It takes less than a minute for him to cross the market at a quick clip, which fortunately seems to communicate his intentions clearly enough that Drax quits yelling. When Peter finally gets within civilized earshot, Drax is grinning from ear to ear. Which he still finds vaguely alarming, to be completely honest.

“Excellent news!” he exclaims.

“Yeah,” Peter gripes. “You just got us seriously upcharged for fuel. Real cool.”

Drax ignores him, gesturing to the stall he’s standing next to, which appears to be selling some kind of plants -- maybe herbs. “They have the sacred White Berry!”

“Um.” Peter scrubs a hand over his face and tries to remember whether he’s ever been told what that is before, whether he ought to be able to follow this conversation. “Are you gonna make a pie?”

Drax looks about as scandalized as he ever gets. “The White Berry is not to be _baked_ into a dessert, Quill.”

“Okay,” Peter says quickly. “Okay, so...do you wanna tell me what it _is_ for? And why you wanted to show it to me?”

“The White Berry,” says Drax, “is native to my homeworld. My people use it when they wish to conceive, to enhance fertility. Typically it grows around the winter solstice, but I have found some here!”

“Okay…” Peter has a feeling that he’s missing something here. Like, probably a pretty big something. Probably something that he’s going to regret. “Is there...something about your love life that you wanna tell me?”

“No!” Drax says immediately. “No, it is for _you_. And Gamora. It is only natural, now that you have consummated your relationship--”

“Whoa!” Peter holds up both palms and breaks off for a moment, coughing as he chokes on his own spit. “Whoa, whoa, _no_. No fertility for us. That is the _last_ thing we want.”

Drax frowns. “But why? You would have beautiful children, highly gifted in combat.”

“Drax.” It takes him a moment to find _any_ words for a response to that, though granted they aren’t even particularly articulate ones. “Have you considered the fact that we both had _actual murdering psychopaths_ for father--well, father figures, I guess, in her case. But you get my point, right?”

He shakes his head. “No. You would be _wonderful_ parents.”

Peter gapes at him for another moment before he finds the ability to respond. “Um. Thanks for the vote of confidence? Really. But we are _not_ ready for kids. Not now, probably not ever. Besides, we’ve got Groot.”

Drax considers this briefly, then nods. “I suppose that is fair. Groot is a handful.” For a beat it seems as though that might be the end of this conversation, but then he brightens up again. “But you should purchase some anyway! White Berry is a very powerful aphrodisiac when it is hung above one’s bed.”

Peter opens his mouth to decline that too, but the next thing he knows, Drax has him by the arm and is dragging him into the stall to look at the merchandise in question. The plants are hanging from the roof of the structure, in little clusters bound with twine. 

Peter looks up at them and nearly chokes again, his mind failing to compute what he’s seeing at least twice before he manages words again. “Holy _shit_. This is mistletoe!”

Drax frowns. “It is the White Berry Plant. It is neither a missile nor a toe.”

“No, no,” says Peter, laughing now as he reaches up to brush his fingers over a couple of the berries. “That’s what it’s called on Earth. Where it also grows. How the hell is there mistletoe in space?”

“We are not in space,” Drax points out, unhelpfully. “We are currently on the planet of--”

“Okay, okay,” he interrupts impatiently, still utterly shaken by the revelation of an Earth plant right here, right in front of him, at least as far as he can tell. “This stuff was like--basically a weed, where I grew up. It lived in trees and it made them sick. But people liked to buy it at Christmas, because there’s a Terran tradition where if two people end up standing under it, they have to kiss.”

“Ah-ha!” yells Drax, clapping his hands. “As I said, a fertility plant!”

Peter shakes his head for what feels like the dozenth time. “No, no. I mean. Well. Maybe? But the tradition was just that you kissed. So people liked to get it and hang it in their houses and then try to invite people they liked to stand under it with them, so they’d have to kiss. Me and my mom used to collect it every year, because I liked to climb trees, and _she_ said we could always use some extra cash. We’d sell it out of the trunk of her car on the side of the big county road.”

Drax nods approvingly. “Your mother sounds like a very prosperous woman.”

Peter swallows, his throat suddenly tight as he looks up at the mistletoe again. “In some ways, she was.”

“Quill,” says Drax, somehow suddenly standing so close that it makes Peter jump, the moment shattered. 

“What?”

“We are standing under your Missile Toe now. Does that mean that we must kiss? Gamora would likely not approve.”

“No!” Peter yelps, stumbling back. “No, um. I think I’m gonna pass on _all_ uses of this stuff for right now.”

Drax’s face falls, though presumably _not_ about the kissing part. He nods. “As you wish, Quill.”

Peter sighs, softening a bit. “Thanks, though. For thinking of me.”

That earns him a clap on the back that nearly knocks him over, and he thinks that some things will never change.


End file.
